Dec 5, 2009

The festive online shopping deadline is coming fast (taking into account the shipping delay necessary to get those items from eBay, DealExtreme, Iwoot, Firebox, DX and such...)

So here's my short list of gadgets of interest for this year. I hope it will help you finding the inspiration:

Idea #1: A Cassette MP3 PlayerFor some reason, many new cars are still coming with an cassette auto-radio, and at best, a CD player that doesn't play MP3's. The most popular solution was to plug one of those MP3 players with FM transmitter but the sound quality would be quite poor and depend on unoccupied frequencies available.

Now you can put an MP3 player shaped as a cassette directly into your auto-radio. Much nicer! It also works as a standalone player.

Idea #2: A Digital USB Microscope
The interest of this gadget really depends on the price you'll pay for it.
At close to €70 (called "new low price"!) from Firebox, I'd say, forget it. But from €28 (shipping included) on eBay, you may think twice.

Audience: student, teacher, engineer, hobbyist...

Idea #3: An Atari joystick key chain

After the full size re-edition of the Atari VCS 2600 joystick a few years ago, there's now a tiny keychain version, and it's still playable on a TV screen!
My only regret is that it come with only 2 games when a hundred would have fit easily. This gadget is NTSC only.

I didn't like those electronic pens that work only on special and expensive paper. A much nicer alternative consist of a wireless receiver that captures everything done with it's dedicated pen (using standard ink refill), then, the receiver memory is dumped to a PC where it can be archived or processed through the provided OCR program. It can also nicely replace a graphic tablet although the accuracy is probably not as high. It was found commonly at over €200 realier this year, but it now dropped to €59.99.

Maybe you know someone so geek he's drifting toward being rather a neird ?
Well you'll have a gift for this person too:

While a binary watch is really for a selected audience, most of them found on eBay are just stylish enough to start and finish their life in a drawer.
But this particular Ovo binary watch found at IWOOT is far more elegant and reasonably sized.

The Double Shot model from Planetary Design is the last mug you may ever need. It does everything and comes complete with the traditional coffee lid, but also the plunger, and, concealed in the base, a small storage box for a refill of coffee, tea or sugar...